Leadership Team
Executive Director, SPRNetwork, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Chief, Complex Care at Boston Children’s Hospital
As a general pediatrician and hospitalist, Dr. Berry’s 15 years of clinical, quality improvement initiatives, health services research, and policy work have focused on optimizing health outcomes and systems for children with medical complexity through proactive care planning, perioperative care coordination, integrated health information management, high quality discharge planning, and use of home and post-acute care services. His work has been published in JAMA, BMJ, and PLoS Medicine and has been awarded nationally by the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Academy Health.
Co-Director, SPRNetwork, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Chief of Hospital Medicine & Complex Care, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Dr. Ryan Coller is a tenured Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of Hospital Medicine & Complex Care at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. His professional work includes service on editorial boards for the journals Pediatrics and Academic Pediatrics. Mentoring faculty and trainees is an integral component of Coller’s work. He has enjoyed serving as a national mentor for the Academic Pediatric Association’s Quality and Safety Improvement Scholars and Young Investigator Award Programs, as well as several faculty promotion committees and career development (K) award mentor teams.
Coller completed medical school at Johns Hopkins University, residency and chief residency at Mattel Children’s Hospital, UCLA, and fellowship through the Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s Child and Family Health Leadership Training Program at UCLA. He is a pediatric hospitalist and complex care pediatrician interested in preventing hospitalization through innovative support for the health care delivered at home by families to children with chronic illnesses.
Coller is a physician-scientist who serves as the principal investigator (PI) of National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded research programs. His research applies mixed-methods to design and test interventions to improve family-centered outcomes for children with medical complexity and prevent hospitalizations. He serves as research director of the Pediatric Complex Care Program.
Executive Director, Family Voices
Allysa Ware, MSW, PhD, is the Executive Director with Family Voices. Allysa has spent the last decade working to improve access to education, medical services, and community supports for children with special health care needs and their families. Allysa received her master’s degree in social work from The Catholic University of America (CUA) and her Ph.D. in social work at CUA with a research focus on autism diagnosis and treatment in the African-American community. She is licensed by the Association of Social Work Boards as a Licensed Graduate Social Worker (LGSW) in Washington, DC, and Maryland. Allysa is also the proud parent of a 16-year-old daughter with an autism spectrum disorder. Allysa serves on the National Research Agenda Care Models writing group.
Network Manager, SPRNetwork, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Department of Pediatrics, Hospital Medicine & Complex Care
Dania Champion is an experienced leader in program and project management, strategic planning, and change management within the health and mental health care sectors. She is deeply committed to supporting children and youth with special health care needs and their families. Her passion lies in optimizing health systems and delivering high-quality, patient-centered care to improve lives and health outcomes. To achieve this, she fosters collaborative, cross-functional partnerships and cultivates supportive, outcome-focused environments that drive transformative change. Champion played a key role in launching the care coordination position for UW’s Pediatric Complex Care Program and expanding the model across the hospital. She has led complex operational and research initiatives, guiding innovative healthcare solutions from concept to implementation. In addition to her leadership roles, Champion brings firsthand experience working one-on-one with children and youth with special health care needs and their families. These direct experiences inform her work and strengthen her commitment to developing effective solutions that create meaningful, lasting change.
Steering Committee
Christina Boothby
Paul Chung
Meg Comeau
Amy Houtrow
Marie Mann
Alison Martin
James Perrin
Jeff Schiff
Edward Schor
Site Investigators
Rishi Agrawal
Stefanie Ames
Jeffrey Colvin
Neal deJong
Carolyn Foster
Katherine Freundlich
Matt Hall
Katie Huth
Karen Kuhlthau
Dennis Kuo
Carlos Lerner
David Ming
Ricardo Mosquera
Jennifer Peralta
Joanna Thomson
Lee Sanders
Christopher Stille
Maggie Wright
Lived Experience
Advisory Committee
Gbemiro Adegbuyi
Dishita Agarwal
Lauren Agoratus
Elisa Aucancela
Andrea Dole
Donene Feist
Andy Le
Andrea Li (Facilitator)
Erica Stearns
Felicia Turner-Walton
Jaclyn Vasquez
Emerging Investigators
Lucas Bruton, MD, MEd
“Nothing About Us Without Us!”: Partnering with Patient Families to Improve Health Care Disparities for Children with Disability Through Provider Education
Lucas Bruton is an attending physician at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in primary care and an Instructor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Bruton received his medical doctorate from Rush University in Chicago, Illinois, and completed his residency and fellowship training (after serving as a chief resident) at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. In addition, he received his master’s in education from the University of Cincinnati. As a clinician-educator, he has a strong interest in health care education, particularly regarding children with medical complexity, children with disability, and primary care pediatrics, including the creation of new curricula for trainees and practicing physicians-based, patient-centered care for children with medical complexity, their families, and providers who care for them.
Kristina Malik, MD
Caregiver-Identified Critical Components of a Medical Home for Children with Medical Complexity
Kristie Malik is a complex care pediatrician at Special Care Clinic, a medical home for children with medical complexity, and the medical director of KidStreet, a medical educational and therapeutic day program for young children (0-3 years) with medical complexity, at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She is also a SCORE Health Service Research Fellow through ACCORDS at the University of Colorado School of Medicine; her research focuses on integrated and preventive care for children with medical complexity. Dr. Malik is the chair-elect of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine Complex Care Committee, co-director of the Complex Care Journal Club Podcast, and Editor of Complex Care Journal. Her professional passion is to improve evidence-based, patient-centered care for children with medical complexity, their families, and providers who care for them.
Aditi Vasan, MD, MSHP MD
Assessing and Addressing Unmet Social Needs for Children and Youth with Special Health Care
Needs Across Pediatric Health Care Settings
Aditi Vasan is an Instructor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a pediatric hospitalist in the Division of General Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Vasan’s research focuses on health equity, ensuring that all families have access to the necessary resources to keep their children healthy and safe. Her current work focuses on increasing access to government benefit programs, designing, implementing, and evaluating novel health system-based social interventions, and improving the integration of health and social services for low-income children with chronic conditions and unmet social needs.
Julia Heneghan, MD
Ecologic Momentary Assessment of Outcomes after Critical Illness in Children with Medical Complexity
Dr. Heneghan received her medical degree from the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in 2013. She completed her pediatric residency training at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and subspecialty training in pediatric critical care at Children’s National Medical Center. During her fellowship, Dr. Heneghan additionally earned a Master of Science in clinical and translational research from the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Heneghan’s research interests include the long-term outcomes of critically ill children, particularly those who are supported by medical technology, as well as the use of novel analytic techniques and biomedical informatics in pediatric critical care research.
Rachel Macak, MD
Caregiver Decision-Making and Advice Regarding Tracheostomies in Preterm Infants with Severe Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia
Rachel Macak is currently Chief Resident in Pediatrics at the University of Utah. She completed medical school at the University of Florida in Gainesville and pediatric residency at the University of Utah. She is looking forward to a career in Pediatric Palliative Care, where she will work with medically complex children frequently, and is currently applying for a fellowship to begin in 2023. Her research interests include qualitative research and medical decision-making, particularly among children with special healthcare needs.
Emmanuel Aryee, MD
Early Introduction of Palliative Care among Families of Children with Medical Complexity
Dr Aryee is a pediatric research fellow at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children. His current research interest is in healthcare disparities with a focus on children with medical complexity and their families. His long-term career plan is to establish himself as a leading academic physician scientist working on research that will serve as the foundation for state and national policies addressing healthcare disparities in vulnerable populations, such as medically underserved minority populations. His goals include generating knowledge that will allow necessary stakeholders to craft policies that reduce negative outcomes for socioeconomically disadvantaged children, as well as designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions to address gaps in healthcare for this population.
Jennifer Peralta, MD, MST
A Socioecological Approach to Social Complexity, Family Functioning, and Community-Based Systems of Care Among Children with Medical Complexity
Jennifer Peralta is a general pediatrician and a second-year Scholar in the National Clinician Scholars Program at UCLA, where she is completing a health services research fellowship and her master’s in Health Policy and Management at the Fielding School of Public Health. Her research interests focus on addressing disparities and structural determinants of health among children with medical complexity through multisector systems redesign that is family-centered and equity and value-based. She aspires to pursue an academic research career that includes impactful collaborations with public and private-sector stakeholders, policymakers, and family and community partners.
Marie A. Pfarr, MD
Telemedicine Use in Children with Medical Complexity
Marie Pfarr is a third-year Pediatric Hospital Medicine and General Pediatric Research Fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center. She completed her Medicine-Pediatric Residency and Chief Residency at the University of Michigan. She is currently pursuing her master’s of Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Cincinnati. Her clinical research interests are focused on care delivery models for children with medical complexity and telehealth utilization in this patient population.
Denise Lillvis, PhD, MPA
Examining Factors Associated with Increased Physical Trauma for CYSHCN
Denise Lillvis, PhD, MPA, is a Research Assistant Professor of Surgery and Health Services Policy and Practice at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Denise is also a Trauma Research Associate with Oishei Children’s Hospital. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in 2017 and was a T32 postdoctoral research fellow in health services research and implementation science in the Department of Family Medicine at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on maternal and child health, spanning topics such as childhood vaccine policy, gun violence prevention, and the detection and management of chronic conditions. She is also interested in how organization-level policies influence healthcare delivery. Before returning to graduate school, she served as the executive director of a patient advocacy nonprofit.
Abby Musial, MD
BAD Med: Burden Alleviation using Deprescribing of Medications in CMC
Abby Musial is a pediatric hospital medicine fellow at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Her long-term career goal is to improve the quality of life and health of children with medical complexity (CMC), and to provide their caregivers with the support and resources to do the same. Her scholarly work in fellowship thus far has focused on standardizing and improving care for CMC. Her current research focuses on family and health care provider perspectives toward polypharmacy, as well as elucidating medications in the medication lists of CMC that could be unnecessary, burdensome, or harmful, with an ultimate goal to formulate a conceptual framework to decrease medication burden in CMC.
Verenea Serrano, PhD
Characterizing integrated behavioral health services for young children with medical complexity and their caregivers in primary care
Verenea Serrano is an assistant professor with the University of Colorado School of Medicine and an integrated clinical psychologist with the Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Dr. Serrano’s clinical work is focused on providing integrated behavioral health services in primary care to children with complex medical needs and their families. Her research and clinical interests include increasing access to quality behavioral health services among underserved populations, early childhood and caregiver mental health, and the psychological well-being and adjustment of medically complex children and their families.
Stefanie Ames, MD
Assessment of caregiver experiences and unmet healthcare needs following discharge home after a critical illness in a CYSHCN
Dr. Ames is a pediatric critical care physician and health services researcher focused on improving health outcomes for children with a critical illness through optimizing healthcare delivery and organization. She is interested in understanding and improving health care for children and youth with special healthcare needs following critical illness. Her current research focuses on family perspectives and unmet needs during the transition to home following critical illness. A better understanding of difficulties that arise during this transition will lead to interventions focused on supporting children and their families in order to improve health outcomes and quality of life. Stefanie’s project is ‘Assessment of caregiver experiences and unmet healthcare needs following discharge home after a critical illness in a child or youth with special healthcare needs’.
Arda Hotz, MD, MPH
Use of Durable Medical Equipment and Supplies in CYSHCN
Arda Hotz is a general pediatrician in the Division of General Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital. A recent graduate of the division’s General Pediatrics Academic Fellowship, she works seeing patients in the Complex Care Service (consultative care coordination for children with medical complexity) as well as the Rainbow Program (full primary care for children with medical complexity). Arda has a clinical interest in outpatient care management for children with medical complexity, especially those who rely on durable medical equipment to optimize their health and well-being. Her research interests involve using health services research to inform the clinical operations of care management for children with medical complexity.
Molly Easterlin, MD
Understanding the effects of chronic medical procedures in children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
Nicole Werner, PhD
Creation of an Adaptive Taxonomy of Barriers and Facilitators to In-Home Care of Children with Cerebral Palsy
Olivia Lindley, PhD, and Morgan Crossman, PhD
High Quality Health Care, IDEA Services, and Adverse Family Impact for US CSHCN: The Role of Prematurity in Early Childhood
Learn more about the Emerging Investigators Program